Malta has emerged as the worst country to get speedy justice at the Court according to the European Justice Scoreboard which has just been published by the Commission.
Time and again, the length of court cases and litigation in Malta have been pointed out in various competitiveness analyses internationally. Delays at Court are not just costly for any business or would-be investor but also time-consuming and breed all sorts of suspicions.
Justice delayed is justice denied, says the Scoreboard. Timely decisions are essential for businesses and investors. In their investment decisions, companies take into account the risk of being involved in commercial disputes, labour or taxation disputes or insolvencies.
The efficiency with which a judicial system in a member state handles litigation is very important. For example, the legal enforcement of a supply or services contract becomes very costly the longer the judicial dispute takes, and even meaningless beyond a certain time, as the probability of retrieving money from payments and penalties diminishes.
Length of proceedings
The length of proceedings expresses the time (in days) needed to resolve a case in court, meaning the time taken by the court to reach a decision at first instance. The "disposition time" indicator is the number of unresolved cases divided by the number of resolved cases at the end of a year multiplied by 365 days.
All figures concern proceedings at first instance and compare, where available, data for 2010 with data for 2012 and 2013. Although different appeal procedures can have a major impact on length of proceedings, the efficiency of a judicial system should already be reflected at first instance, as the first instance is an obligatory step for everyone going to court.
In Fig. 4, time needed to resolve civil, commercial, administrative and other cases, Malta is second from worst (Portugal) and the data for 2010 decrease by 2012 but then shoot up for 2013 (which year does not have any data on Portugal), so in 2013 Malta is the worst country in the EU.
In Fig. 5, time needed to resolve litigious civil and commercial cases, Malta is again the worst offender. There is a slight improvement from 2010 to 2012 but in 2013 things go back to bad.
In Fig. 6, time needed to resolve administrative cases, Malta is again the wooden spoon, once again with some improvement from 2010 to 2012 but things go back to bad in 2013.
According to other results, Malta registers the worst time between the beginning of a civil case and its completion - 750 days - with Italy and Cyprus tying on 608 days. At the other end of the scale, all it takes is 192 days in Germany and 308 days in France.